28 Jul 2010

Breaking News from Nokia HQ to invite MoMoLo members to attend the developer launch event for the Nokia N8 next Tuesday morning at the rather lovely Century Club on Shaftesbury Avenue. Yes, it’s all a bit short notice, as it often is with these things, but it looks really interesting whether you’re a seasoned developer or new to mobile. There are sessions geared around development, but I happen to know that Nokia is trying to make things easier for the less technical amongst us to join the apps party too and that’s where QT comes in. So if you’re interested in getting an app out there, but coding isn’t your strong suit, then you should consider coming along to this to find out more. I’m no coder, so that’s what I’ll be there to explore. Oh, and we also get to play with shiny new Nokia N8 handsets too.

So if you’d like to come – here are the details:

What is it: Nokia is hosting an exciting developer event for the N8 which will provide an introduction to QT and the Nokia N8 - complete with live developer workshops at all levels and an opportunity for some hands-on time with the device itself. It’s also a chance to network with your peers.

When is it: Tuesday 3rd August, 9am to 1pm

Where is it: The Century Club, 61 to 63 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 6LD – nearest tube is Piccadilly but Leicester Square is nearby as well.

So in a little bit more detail, what are we talking about here? Well the Nokia people have sent me this:

The N8 wow-factor

The much anticipated Nokia N8, our latest smartphone, intuitively connects to the people, places and services that matter most.With the Nokia N8, people can create exciting content, connect to their favourite social networks, and enjoy on-demand Web TV programs and Ovi Store apps. The Nokia N8 introduces a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash, HD-quality video recording, film editing software and Dolby surround sound. All in a beautiful, aluminium design which you can see here.

The Nokia N8 is Nokia’s first device to be integrated with Qt, a software development environment that simplifies the development and makes it possible to build applications once and deploy across Symbian and other software platforms. Nokia has also made the powerful and simple to use Nokia Qt SDK available, in its initial beta, to enable developers to start realizing the potential of Qt.

Why you should attend?

Learn first-hand from Nokia’s experts and peers in the developer community – meanwhile we’ll introduce you to all the latest tools and technologies and everything you need to take advantage of the enormous opportunity that is presented by the N8. And rest assured: There won’t be any PowerPoint presentations during these sessions. And of course we’ll teach you how to make best use of the Ovi Store so that you can make your content available to millions of consumers from more than 180 countries around the world.

I shall be there. And I expect there’ll be a few familiar faces there. So if you’re interested in finding more about the opportunities with Nokia QT and have a play with the lovely, new, shiny N8 device and you’re free on Tuesday morning, why not put your name down and come along.

So, back to this year's competition. The aim is to find the best mobile internet start-up across the UK, Portugal, Spain and The Netherlands and reward the winner with Euro 100,000 and the runner-up with Euro 50,000.

The competition opens today and closes on 22nd August at midnight. But please don’t leave your entry until the last minute. All entries need to be completed in English and you do need to adhere to the Terms and Conditions. The actual competition Ts & Cs are only a few pages – the rest of the document relates to the Ts & Cs for Vodafone’s Widget platform which you must also agree to. Yes, it’s a long document, but please give it the once over to make sure you’re happy with it. I’ve read it and I can’t see anything particularly nasty in there, but I’m not an expert on these things, nor am I a lawyer so don’t just take my word for it. [Update: These have been shortened.]

The application form is pretty straight forward but I highly recommend that you take some thought before you fill it in. There is limited space, and limited time for the judges to read and take in what you’re writing, so it means you need to to think through clearly what your proposition is, describe the features but make sure you also state the benefits as these are what make you attractive to customers. All entries are confidential.

You can only enter once and once you’ve entered, you may not amend your entry.

If you have specific questions or concerns, please get in touch with me and I’ll do my best to answer your questions or put you in touch with someone who can.

Entry Criteria:

Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 is open to any individual aged 18 or over resident in the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain or the United Kingdom and to Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and UK-based start-up companies, businesses, institutions and all other organisations.

Participants must be or must have the intention to become a start-up enterprise/ business in the field of mobile internet products or services. Start-up in this context means that the enterprise/business must be less than 3 years old.

We will collate all the entries and the local jury will review them to get to a shortlist of 5.

We will then review the shortlist to find a single company or individual to put forward to the final.

The UK finalist will present at the final to be held at Picnic in Amsterdam on 24 September 2010 alongside the finalists from The Netherlands and Portugal.

Last year we were able to put three companies through to the final at Picnic. They were Audioboo, Rummble and Woobius. Woobius came third and walked away with a Euro 25,000 prize. And Audioboo and Rummble have both done very well since last year’s contest, both recently raising funds and growing their respective businesses.

We asked all our UK finalists from VMC2009 what they thought of the competition last year and whether or not it was worth entering.

Mark Rock from Audioboo tells us: "Vodafone Mobile Clicks was one of the freshest competitions of 2009. To have a mobile network operator embrace the start-up community in this way was fantastic. The quality of the judging through 3 rounds was excellent, if a little gruelling, And the support & help given all the way through to being taken to Amsterdam to compete in the finals (we didn't win, by the way) was above and beyond the normal competition process. Vodafone Mobile Clicks is worth the effort"

And Andrew Scott from Rummble said: "Vodafone put considerable energy behind the Mobile Clicks competition which definitely contributed to our profile .. it was also a lot of fun!"

Bob Leung, CEO of Woobius tells us 'Vodafone Mobile Clicks helped us take an idea from concept to working prototype, with the assistance of an expert jury, over several rounds. We used the prize money to take the product to market, and now we are working with leading players in the construction industry. We're building them their very own Woobius Eye, that they use to share information live between desktops and mobile phones, between offices and construction sites. It's a great success. The prize money really helped us to advance our idea over our competitors and we urge anyone with a good idea to enter this fantastic competition.'

And here’s a couple of pictures of the Woobius team with their prize cheque. Well done Woobius!

So, get the thinking caps on and get entering. The Mobile Monday London team wishes you the best of luck!

The official press release is below.

VODAFONE MOBILE CLICKS 2010 COMPETITION ANNOUNCED

Search to find best mobile internet start-up across three European markets is on

27th July, 2010. Vodafone today announced the launch of Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010, a competition to identify and develop the best, most innovative mobile internet start-ups. Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010 will run across three European markets - Netherlands, Portugal and UK.

The contest is open to any start-up with a great idea for a mobile site, service or application and entrants can compete for the €150,000 prize fund by submitting entries to http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com/. The competition is open now, and the closing date for entries is midnight, August 22nd, 2010.

Each entry will be judged on five criteria: originality, creativity and innovation; technical and operational feasibility; economic and financial viability; value to end-users; and finally, on the quality of the management team.

The judging will take place over three rounds. Each competing market will draw up a shortlist of their five best local submissions, a winner will be selected from each shortlist and finally all local winners will be invited to represent their country in a live final at the PICNIC Festival in Holland on September 24th, 2010, where the overall winner will be chosen by a panel of mobile industry experts, including Om Malik, founder of the GigaOM Network, Russell Buckley, VP Global Alliances at Admob, and Rudy de Waele, Founder of dotopen, the Mobile Premier Awards and co-founder of the Mobile 2.0 Conferences in San Francisco and Barcelona.

Launched in 2008, Vodafone Mobile Clicks is a Vodafone initiative designed to accelerate innovation in the mobile internet sector across Europe. It is now the biggest mobile start-up competition of its kind.

“Through initiatives like Vodafone Mobile Clicks and our wider developer outreach programme, we’re finding ways to help stimulate, grow and commercialise the innovation that is at the heart of the mobile ecosystem,” said Lee Epting, Director of Content Services at Vodafone Group. “Vodafone Mobile Clicks is really about empowering ambitious, young start-ups to develop their ideas and accelerate them into market. I’m excited to be judging another year of inspiring entries from entrants across Europe.”

26 Jul 2010

Wow. This was a busy one! We had about 225 people in the room from all parts of the mobile eco-system. We had a dozen students from the Arts Institutes in the US join us and they had a lot to take in in a very short space of time. They were spotted making copious notes. We had lots of folks attend from our lovely event sponsor, BlackBerry. And of course, we had a great panel and lots of lively debate – a lot of that in the networking afterwards. Thank you to everyone for coming. And also a thank you to the CBI for looking after us.

So, there was lot to take in and our regular reporter, Lauren McGregor from Hotwire PR, has given us her take on the event. Over to you Lauren.

Mobile Monday - 200,000 apps, where's mine? The relevance of this topic was shown in the huge turnout we had this week (200+) made up of application developers, handset manufactures and many from the full lifecycle of mobile. The panel reflected the diversity within the crowd, compiling a handset manufacturer, a mobile music app, a mobile app marketer, a mobile app discover site, a market analyst and an enterprise tech advisory company.

The prevalence of mobile applications touches just about every sector of the mobile ecosystem, from mobile advertising and marketing to mobile content … and we covered a lot of ground at the event. The reality of developing a mobile application has come to fruition for many developers and the technology available means that many of us can now do this in the comfort of our own home. However, when it comes to getting that app out there and gaining consumer interest, we enter a whole other ball game. Whether you are on a big or small budget, it feels like unless you have a well known and established brand behind you, reaching the top 25 in the App Store charts will feel like a very distant target. But how can app developers be heard through this ambient noise of over 200,000 applications?

First things first, I want to target mobile … but do I go for a mobile app or mobile web? Many have combined the two and created a ‘wrapper’ app, which effectively is just a link on device home screen to the website. Alyssa made the point that by just using the web, you miss out on the functionality of an app - for example 7Digital integrates Last FM, something that would not be possible through mobile web. Although a ‘wrapper-app’ defeats the general purpose of an app, it has been shown to increase awareness and traffic by up to 30-40% - so worth a go if nothing else. Chris added that by investing in an app you better the user experience as, although it is improving, 3G coverage often means a slower experience on the mobile web … an issue that you do not face as much with an app.

Getting your app out there

When it comes to marketing, the identification of your audience is of utmost importance to ensure you maximize uptake … but is this the same for apps? Eli was the first to jump in with the very good point that in reality, developers are not really looking at demographics but more the all important numbers. The shop window no longer exists and content is now open to all, hence targeting a individual user is more difficult … user profiles are key to the development of targeted marketing and these can be obtained through, for example browsing behaviours. Chris mentioned that the trouble with using user data is that the data quickly becomes old, as consumers change their minds so much, e.g. who would have thought the demographic for £300-400 mobile phones would now be teens. Another thing to consider is that often the user of the app is not the one who actually purchases it; it is regularly the younger sibling or daughter that sits playing Angry Birds on another’s mobile phone. It is of course important to get a second, third or tenth opinion however, and Eli said that any market research is always important, even if that is just asking you nearest and dearest what they really think. Also, try to avoid listening to the press about what consumers want, as they are often reporting on ‘hype’ and not what consumers really think and want.

Although targeting to certain demographics can be difficult with mobile applications, we are seeing more and more examples of companies using them as a way to reach the mass market. Chris mentioned that much of this is brands hoping for some of the ‘Apple magic dust’ to rub off on them, and to the large part I think this is true. VW and Barclays are both great examples of how you can create a fun application that becomes very popular and increases brand awareness. This model is known as a ‘brand butler’, where another brand dines off another’s expertise … in this case a games developer with a bank/car manufacturer.

Ensuring your app is seen

So, you’ve made your app, identified your audience (well, as best you can) and now it’s time to put it out there. Fist issue – discovery. How do you make sure that your app can be found and downloaded? Tony asked the audience how many of the Facebook integrated applications they could name and although a few were mentioned, by in large we were at a loss to name more then 3 or 4. Apparently there are over 250,000 apps – just on Facebook - and no one knows what they are. Eli drew on the previous comments on marketing niche areas; word of mouth is integral to the success of any application. Many on the panel described the mobile app world as the ‘Wild West’ and Mike touched on the fact that there is a lot of luck when it comes to a successful app. He continued that a good marketing strategy is key to this and you need to identify your audience and the publications/blogs that they are reading … make sure consumers have somewhere that they can read about your app. Mike continued that it is important to build a conversation with your users, allow them to email/make a comment and respond to them as much you can. Consumers will remember a good experience and tell their friends about it … word of mouth is one of the best and cheapest forms of marketing. Chris’ top tips – cause some trouble, break from the norm and if you can … be sexy!

How much?

Another issue you are going to have to face is the cost of your app; do we go free or add a price tag? Tony commented that the perception of the cost of apps has changed so much over the years and this is largely down to Apple … many a gasp has been heard at the thought of paying 59p for an app. However, the amount of free apps mean that the ‘noise’ you receive when searching for say an app is so huge, largely down to the sheer number of free apps that many choose a small fee. 7Digital offer their users free content in addition to the paid for stuff - all via weekly free songs, a good idea to drive traffic and increase brand loyalty.

Reaching different platforms

During the Q&A session a very hot topic was raised by David Murphy, editor of Mobile Marketing Magazine, that of app porting technology. There are a number of companies offering brands the answer to porting apps for each mobile platform via this technology, but does it work and does it solve the problem of cross platform reach? Chris mentioned that often the fine detail is missing when this is done and the general consensus from the panel was that the process was costly and of relatively low quality.

Tips

So, app development and marketing is no easy task and the best thing to do is start simple, don't aim for a big audience as it is hard to reach them all ... target niches, communicate with them and sit where they can see you. It is a tough and crowded market out there and if you have a great app it is going to take a fair amount of work to make it a success. Once you make it to the all important top 25 though, the magic is going to start to happen … good luck!

And a last word from our sponsor about the BlackBerry 2010 Super Apps Developer Challenge

All application developers are invited to enter this year’s Super-Apps challenge. Closing date is 6th September 2010 but you must have your mobile application approved and already live in the BlackBerry App World, so don’t leave it until the last minute to enter. There’s over $1.5m of prizes including developer services, featured placements, marketing support and more. There are also regional submissions and judging. We hope there’ll be a good contingent of folks from the Mobile Monday London community who enter and we wish you the best of luck. Find out more and how to enter over at the competition website.

Thanks Lauren.

We couldn’t cover everything in this post, and on reflection, this was a really big topic to cover in an hour or so. I expect we may well revisit this at Over The Air and beyond. This topic also proved popular with the bloggers in our midst and lots of folks wrote up their take on proceedings. There’s lots of good stuff here including marketing hints and tips so do take a look if this is an area of interest for you.

Over The Air is coming up. Registration will be open soon. Submissions are now open if you’d like to lead a session or would like to nominate someone to lead a session. More detail on that soon.

No event in August, but lots coming up in the Autumn and we need a bit of time to prepare for that.

Please get in touch with me, Helen Keegan, if you’d like to offer your services in some way to support the community, either by volunteering your time or sponsoring an event or advertising on our website.

6 Jul 2010

Well that’s a good question indeed for anyone who has an app out there or wants to get a mobile application out there. Simply putting your application in any number of app stores isn’t enough when there are 199,999 others in there competing for attention. You’re in danger of just getting lost in the crowd. So what is the role of marketing in getting a successful application out there? How important is brand building and trust? How does a customer find out about your app and get it, whether it’s paid for or free? Is this now a marketing game rather than a distribution game? And what do developers need to know about branding, marketing and PR to create a successful marketing campaign for their mobile application or service? Does marketing need to be higher up the agenda than it was? What do we need to know about customers to make this happen?

Well that’s what our next panel session is about on 19 July 2010. Proudly sponsored by the lovely folks at BlackBerry, we’ve put together a great panel for you and expect a lively discussion as well to thrash out the marketing issues to get your on customers handsets beyond simply getting your app up in the iPhone App Store. This is not a discussion about platforms or App Stores. It’s a discussion about marketing, secrets for success, how to avoid failures and things to think about when marketing your mobile application or service.

We’re at the CBI at Centrepoint this month (nearest tube is Tottenham Court Road, please use the entrance at street level) and doors will open at 6pm for a prompt 6.30pm start. We’ll announce panellists as soon as we have them confirmed. Or we might just keep it a surprise! Rest assured, it’ll be a good session. The panel session will run until 8pm and then we’ll have an hour or two for networking and drinks courtesy of our friends at BlackBerry.

Registration is open over at http://momolo.org/ but there are only a few places left, so please reserve your spot before registration closes.

Please note that the event will be oversubscribed. Due to the number of no-shows every month, we over-subscribe by a certain percentage to ensure we get a full room. This means we cannot guarantee you entry or a seat - especially to late-comers. We reserve the right to turn people away on the *rare* occasion that we are full. In the highly unlikely event that we are that full and we are unable to accommodate you in the main room, you will be welcome to stay in the venue in the networking area and to join the networking drinks afterwards. So far, this has only happened once in the almost-five years we've been operating. And that was when we had a smaller venue.

Wow, this was a popular event and generated much discussion both at the event, and afterwards. A big thank you to Oded Ran and the Windows Phone team for sponsoring the event and hosting us in their wonderful offices in Victoria. It was great.

Our regular columnist, Lauren McGregor has given her take on the event. Over to you Lauren.

At the latest Mobile Monday London event, the panel dissected the issues surrounding the various platforms that are available to application developers … are there too many? Are multiple platforms a bad thing? What does multi platform mean for end users, industry stakeholders, developers and device manufactures? This is no longer just about mobile as there are many different platforms to be integrated into the customer experience including in-store and online. How can we make it easier?

Fragmentation within the mobile industry is a huge issue, made more complicated by the variety of new devices coming to market every week. We also have millions of mobile devices equipped to handle voice and messaging, many have browser functionality and are Java enabled. However, the smartphone market is much smaller in comparison with approximately 11% market share. Tesco recognise this as an issue when it comes to applications i.e. the majority of its customers would not use an app. Flirtomatic started off life as a Java app five years ago, but found the same issue which prevented them from reaching all its potential customers. It found a simple and clever way of doing this … the mobile internet – which proved highly successful.

The developers behind the apps have to stump up most of the frustration when it comes to multiple platforms for their apps … developing, marketing and managing for each platform ... a big headache. What can handset manufacturers do to help developers navigate the current platform landscape and make a profit from investing in them? The general consensus on the night was competitive pricing... so if the price is right!

When it comes to application updates from the developer, additional complications can arise. Many consumers just don’t update their apps, this is largely due to perceived benefits for the users, but also the experience that the app stores provide; not making it clear enough to the user as to when an update is needed or how to download it. Tesco pointed out that Apple is one with its finger on the pulse here … making it quick and easy to be alerted of an update and highlighting it's benefits. One of Tesco’s recent updates for its ‘Finder app’ received a 97% update response rate. It puts this down to the fact that the update benefits were clearly communicated to the user. Perhaps a traffic light system for updates could work to let the user know how urgent the update is, therefore ensuring more downloads?

The issue of virtual currency and in-app payments raised its head during the debate and Flirtomatic, which uses virtual currency, said that it was difficult to decide how to bill users – PayPal, credit card? The panel agreed that credit card payments were the most efficient and well received method of payment for their customers. The best user case when talking mobile money is the emerging markets, a segment that is growing fast largely due to lack of access to PCs and/or credit cards for payments.

It is not all about multi platform though, the multiple channels that companies can now reach the end user with is also very exciting. An example from Tesco was that while watching a cookery programme on your TV set and being able to order the ingredients directly via a web link. Fragmentation is a price we have we have to pay for the benefit of having such a wide array of devices available to us, but also an opportunity to make something different … grab the users attention and make some money!

And not only did Lauren do a write up, but quite a few in our audience did too and they’re all well worth a read.